The present invention provides an improved and simplified tool for the media planning industry. A good general description of this industry is provided by Mark E. Cannon in U.S. Pat. No. 6,029,176 incorporated herein by reference. Prior art fusion methods result in a loss of precision in audience estimates from the ‘donor’ database producing ‘regression to the mean’. In contrast, media research ‘currencies’ of the present invention are preserved exactly, while correlation between media vehicles from different databases are preserved, as well. Paepke U.S. Pat. No. 6,249,785 discloses a method of predicting consumer ratings wherein tables are used to translate pairs of ratings into rankings that are then used to predict ratings of future rankings. The present method differs in an important way from prior art “fusion” methods wherein a single database is created by simply combining or “fusing” two or more source databases, however.
The improved method of the present invention enables market researchers and media planners to more quickly make sense of results from a plurality of large surveys. It provides access to ratings for TV, radio and other media vehicles for target audiences wherein the target audiences may be defined not only in terms of their demographics but also in terms of their product and brand usage, lifestyle or many other marketing variables. Other variables may include those variables included by print readership surveys such as the Print Measurement Bureau's PMB studies, for example. To investigate how best to apportion limited advertising funds between competing types of media, the invention compares ratings, CPMs, and reach/frequency (R&F) performance for the same target audiences without having to fall back on simplistic demographics-the lowest common denominator across different audience surveys. Unlike so-called “single source” surveys the inventive method of the present invention (which may be called “MultiBasing”) provides ratings based on the true “currency” data for each medium. This innovation means that a plurality of media surveys can now allow users to concentrate on accurate audience measurement without compromising results or overburdening respondents with vast numbers of questions on product useage and so on. The process may be employed with any combination of respondent databases. Only one survey is needed to collect all the product usage. Duplicate survey questions are no longer required.
Such a survey has a special role in MultiBasing as the -“linkage study” that provides data on statistical relationships among audiences who view a variety of different media.
For any target audience the linkage survey is used to determine statistical relationships between print and TV, for example. By including simple and cost effective measures of vehicle-level exposure, in just a few pages of a linkage survey questionnaire, enough information is obtained on print, TV, radio and other media vehicle exposure to ensure that relationships are captured just as accurately as by a hypothetical “ideal” single-source surveys.
The invention solves the well-known problem of regression-to-the-mean and avoids loss of sensitivity inherent and unavoidable using prior art fusion methods. The invention uses statistical relationships in conjunction with “currency” ratings to give major advertisers the opportunity to collect linkage data on their own market segmentation or usage and attitudes surveys to develop in-house multibasing methods optimized to patterns of consumer behavior in their specific product categories. The method provides advertisers with media ratings for target audiences defined in terms of their own marketing measures.